Rocco thought about it for a minute. “Me either.”
“I’ll arm wrestle you for her.”
“I’m not sure she’d acknowledge the winner.”
“Are you saying you won’t?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“What are you saying?”
Rocco slipped off his suit jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves, set his elbow on the table and looked Colin square in the eye. “Let’s say loser backs off.”
Some things never change—flinging down the gauntlet has been the male equivalent of problem solving since time immemorial. On the current world stage, nuclear weapons were involved; here at Louie’s, a less cataclysmic option was operating.
Colin moved the beer glasses out of the way and took his position, flexing his fingers once or twice to limber up.
The men carefully grasped each other’s hands, adjusting their grips.
“Someone has to give the signal,” Colin murmured.
“Hey, Louie,” Rocco shouted. “Come over and give us the go-ahead.”
Louie was thin and wiry; he didn’t look as though he drank any of his beer or ate any of his greasy grill food. He rarely smiled, talked less, but his drinks were the best price for name brands in town, so he’d always made a good living even though he lacked personal charisma.
He tipped his head as he arrived at the booth. “Ready?”
Both men nodded.
He looked at Rocco, then at Colin, raised his hand, held it upright for a three count, then dropped it and walked back to the bar.
Both men were powerful, well-muscled, their biceps bulging as they strained for advantage in that first initial thrust.
Colin’s teeth were gritted and he was breathing hard after fifteen seconds, the tattoos on his arm shifting as he threw all his weight into maintaining his position.
Rocco was holding steady, looking for that first small muscle of his opponent’s to inadvertently disengage. A thin sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead as he held firm.
Twenty seconds.
Neither man had fluctuated from center.
Rocco’s nostrils flared.
Colin grunted.
Thirty seconds.
Then it happened, that minute recoil when a muscle yielded for a fraction of a second.
Rocco shoved hard and Colin’s arm smacked into the tabletop.
“Two out of three,” Colin growled, his jaw set.
“That’s it, then. Loser backs off.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Colin scowled. “Put it up.” He set his elbow on the table again.
“You give the go this time. Louie isn’t too sociable.” Rocco got into position.
The men grasped each other’s hand, Colin said, “Go,” and Rocco slammed Colin’s arm down on the table.
He wasn’t in the mood to fuck around—or lose to Colin. He particularly wasn’t in the mood to waste any more time when he’d just thought of a way to find out where Chloe might have gone. He was sliding out of the booth before Colin had finished swearing.
And he was out the door and running two seconds later.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ROCCO WOULD HAVE LIKED TO KNOW what had happened between Chloe’s plea for him to come home and her subsequent disappearance, but first things first. He had to find her.
It’s not all that easy to find a phone book anymore. They’re all ripped off from the phone booths and bars, even restaurants. He found one at the Super America gas station on Central, discovered there were twenty-two Chisholms in the phone book; four of those had addresses that could be Chloe’s parents. It would have helped if he knew her parents’ names, but he didn’t. It would have helped if he knew someone they knew, but he didn’t. It would have helped if everyone wasn’t so freaked out with serial killers and child molesters and harassing telemarketers so a phone call from a stranger was cause to call the cops.
Mostly, it would have helped if it wasn’t a workday with few people at home. Which is how phone calls one and two turned out. Three hung up on him, so that was a problem. He changed his story a little for phone call number four, deciding to call himself a friend from college.
Chloe’s mother answered on the fifth ring because she was just coming in from the garage with groceries.
Rocco had been just about ready to hang up.
She listened politely to his story. In her line of work she’d even seen a serial killer once, so she wasn’t as freaked as most people who only read about the problem people in the papers. But when he was finished with his explanation of why he was looking for Chloe, Lizzie said, “Are you the Rocco who’s engaged?”
It wasn’t a good start, but he was desperate, so he said, “Yes and no, let me explain.”
Maybe it helped that Lizzie had been dealing with other people’s problems for years. Maybe it helped that the young man sounded so desperate and his explanation was succinct but telling. Perhaps the fact that Gracie had given her a heads-up on what appeared to be Chloe’s first real passion—because anyone who knew Chloe had discounted Sebastian despite the fact that she had lived with him—tipped the scales in Rocco’s favor. “She never tells me anything, but if I were to guess where she’s gone, I’d say the North Shore. She likes the cabins right on the lakeshore. Which isn’t very helpful, I realize, with a zillion resorts, but that’s all I can suggest.” She thought of saying, Maybe you should disengage yourself, first, but decided she wasn’t in a position to tell this stranger what to do. Although, she intended to put her two-cents worth in to Chloe once she returned. Engaged or semiengaged men did not make the best boyfriends.
Rocco thanked her profusely, said something cryptic about meeting her soon and hung up.
Lizzie immediately called Grace, for despite their differences of opinion on issues of age and dating, politics, opera, books and the occasional artist, they shared a love of Chloe. “He called,” Lizzie said.
Grace didn’t need to ask who. The ladies discussed Rocco’s conversation in great detail.
* * *
AS IT HAPPENED, Chloe wasn’t on the North Shore. She’d driven up 94 and, on reaching Alexandria, decided to look up an old friend from college who’d married another friend of hers and settled back in their hometown. She’d sort of lost touch with them, because they’d picked up on small-town life, had three children and didn’t do much clubbing anymore. Barry had joined his father’s law firm, Lia had become a wife and mother, and even as she exited the freeway Chloe wondered why she was stopping.
She knew why she was stopping. She’d been overcome with an urge to see Lia’s babies. But what she didn’t understand was the underlying urgent motivation when babies had always seemed infinitely more interesting from a distance.
It was all Rocco’s fault, of course, like everything else that was going wrong with her previously self-indulgent, amusing, vastly contented life. And even Amy’s visit that morning hadn’t been sufficiently dampening to her inexplicable compulsion. Now she wanted to see babies and actually hold babies and, God help her, maybe even have a baby—specifically with a person who shall remain nameless. There was really no accounting for the maternal instinct, she realized. Even bitchy Amy hadn’t been able to quash it.
She took a deep breath, because even thinking about something so outre was causing her pulse rate to accelerate dangerously. Pulling over to the shoulder, she talked to herself very seriously for a moment, questioning the raving delirium that had overtaken her somewhere between Elk River and the Alexandria exit. But when a police car drove by very slowly and the officer stared at her with more than a little scrutiny, she quickly put her car into gear and pulled back onto the road.
If she was going to do any further soul-searching, the Holiday station up ahead would be a much safer venue. But her demented baby craving persisted, through two small bags of salt-and-vinegar chips—really nowadays a bag held no more than three chips, barely a mouthful—a Coke to wash down those three chips and an ice cream bar—again, very small—to balance off
the saltiness. Then truly, as though the hand of God had intervened, Barry drove by in a smart black BMW convertible that had caught her eye before she saw him. Barry. Can you imagine? There was no longer any question whether she should go or stay when divine intervention was involved.
But he accelerated away from the red light like a sixteen-year-old driver trying to impress his girlfriend and was out of sight before she had maneuvered through the cars at the gas pumps. Parking her car again, she called information on her cell phone and dialed Lia.
A small note of panic underlay Lia’s invitation to stop by, but the screaming children in the background no doubt contributed to that nuanced tone. She had said, “You’re in town?” in a kind of high-pitched shock, like the Russian sentries might have said on first seeing the charge of the Light Brigade coming across that valley near Sebastopol. Chloe hoped her visit went better than that charge.
But she was just slightly tense as she pulled up to the large brick colonial house with a curved driveway up to the front door that was decorated with a Smith and Hawken wreath of dried hydrangeas and surrounded by a variety of brightly colored plastic wheeled vehicles for children. And she sat in her car for a moment after turning off the ignition, not sure she wished to go in.
But Lia opened the door just then and waved; in one arm she held a plump, hairless baby. A toddler of indeterminate sex clutched one leg and a thumb-sucking little girl in braids scowled on her other side. My God, had it been that long since she’d seen Lia? That little girl looked old enough for school.
She had to go in, of course. She’d been seen.
Chloe almost turned and ran, though, when the scowling little girl threw her doll at her as she approached. Lia said something snappish, curtailing the imminent discharge of the dart gun her daughter held in her other hand, and added, in a more artful, hostessy tone, “You know children—do come in, Chloe. It seems ages since I’ve seen you.”
The baby cooed just then, held out her little pudgy arms toward Chloe and only someone with a heart of stone could have resisted. Chloe only winced slightly as she picked up the baby and felt the drool dribble down the front of her silk shirt.
And Lia was genuinely pleased to see her, which partially alleviated the loss of her favorite Marc Jacobs silk shirt that she’d bought on sale after it had been marked down three times.
They reminisced about their college days over coffee, the baby—it turned out to be a girl—absolutely perfect, just sitting on Chloe’s lap and cooing like a little bird. The older children—the toddler was a boy, she discovered when Lia addressed him as Michael (Lia had always hated her ethnic-sounding name)—were less adorable—screaming and throwing things until their mother had to placate them with ice cream and cookies. Which really worked very well; they sat at their little painted table on their little painted chairs that Lia had bought in New York at some adorable shop and ate their ice cream and cookies with considerable mess, but quietly. Lia said she had a housekeeper so the mess wasn’t an issue. And the quiet was very nice.
Chloe put Lia’s clever way of maintaining order with ice cream into her memory bank for future reference.
They exchanged information about their lives in edited versions, neither quite willing after six years to be completely candid. But Lia did say, once, that she might come down and spend some time with Chloe. She missed the clubs.
And Chloe said in an offhand way that she’d been thinking about having a baby someday . . . in the very distant future, she’d quickly added. And the baby had cooed again, as though encouraging her, and Lia had spoiled it all by saying, “I’d think about it if I were you.”
It wasn’t that she was unhappy, she quickly added, but one lost some of one’s identity, she pointed out. She was thinking about going back into teaching once the baby was weaned.
Chloe couldn’t say that she was surprised. Lia had never struck her as someone who adored children, although she supposed everyone adored their own children. But Lia had always talked of traveling the world and writing for National Geographic or something. Her degree was in anthropology and she’d interned with Jane Goodall for a semester. Chloe couldn’t imagine living in the jungle anywhere, but then she didn’t like being bitten by bugs that could kill you. But Lia had loved every minute of it. And now she was in a brick colonial in Alexandria juggling three children instead of chimpanzees . . . do not even go there, Chloe’s inner voice urged.
When the two older children were full or bored or both, they began throwing their ice cream. Another handy reference for the future: children had a short attention span. When a splat of spumoni ice cream joined the drool on her shirt, Chloe said with complete dishonesty, although she seriously tried to think of something less untrue, “I’d better go or I won’t reach Brainerd by nightfall.” Which then meant she had to make up further lies about meeting someone at a specific resort so she had to leave right that very moment.
But her visit had been useful. Her own life looked less stressful—very much less. And if her love life wasn’t completely to her liking, at least she didn’t have the responsibility for anyone but herself. She was feeling, really . . . much more optimistic and heartened. She was almost back to her old standby about fish in the sea.
Travel was indeed enlightening. Whoever had coined the phrase was quite insightful. She was truly grateful for what she had and what she didn’t have—in this case, three children under age five.
She found a lovely cabin at a lovely resort on Gull Lake, ordered a great many items from the room-service menu and lay back on the bed with the remote control in her hand, counting the blessings of her solitude.
Screw Rocco.
Screw Colin.
Double screw little Amy and her threats.
She was free and untrammeled, the wine was very good—she took another sip—and The Forsyte Saga was on cable . . . all five episodes. She’d even remembered to bring her vibrator. So when that actor who played the part of Soames Forsyte with so much intensity and utter constraint began to get to her libido, she could enjoy his really fantastic, masterful maleness in her own fashion.
TWENTY-EIGHT
BEFORE ROCCO COULD THINK ABOUT DRIVING up to the north shore, he had several stops to make—one significant and some merely essential.
The most serious was going to take every ounce of courage he possessed and perhaps a good amount of brash stupidity as well. But he was going to do it. He’d made that decision. He was going for broke.
That’s not to say he wasn’t apprehensive as hell as he walked into Jim Thiebaud’s office. The term cold feet took on pertinent meaning; he had to overcome the urge to flee by sheer will.
“Come in, come in,” Jim cried, rising from his chair and moving around his desk to greet Rocco. “Tell me about your trip. Mary Beth’s ecstatic about the numbers.”
The large office overlooking the Mississippi River seemed larger today, ominous in its size, like crossing two football fields, Rocco thought, each step bringing him closer to disaster.
The two men met near the model of Jim’s latest townhouse and green-acres development and shook hands.
“Come on, sit down.” Jim waved Rocco into a chair. “A drink? Some good single malt?”
“No thanks.” Rocco took a seat, feeling tense and unsure. But then, he had a lot to lose.
“So tell me about the orders. You were stupendous, I hear.”
Rocco cleared his throat, then cleared it again, unable to find his voice. “I’ve something to ask you first,” he finally said.
“Ask away. We’re friends.” Jim smiled, conscious of Rocco’s discomfort. “Look, Rocco, I’ve known you all your life. You can say anything to me.”
Rocco almost changed his mind. He thought of Mary Beth and her wanting a baby, of Anthony and his family, and wondered if he was being unreasonably selfish. Then he reminded himself that if need be—if Jim went apeshit, he’d become the sacrificial lamb. Not a role he’d ever considered before, but on the other hand, there’d never be
en so much money at stake before, nor so many people’s lives.
And sometimes you did what you had to do.
But not before that last Hail Mary pass.
He took a breath. “It’s about Amy.”
“Is something wrong?”
“There could be. It depends.”
“Rocco, obviously something’s up. You look like you did the time you and Steve took my truck when you were kids and put it in the ditch out on the farm.” He smiled again. “Just tell me. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”
Rocco tried to smile back but couldn’t, not certain what he was doing was right, not sure his willingness to be sacrificial would ultimately placate Jim if he were to take offense. “Okay, here goes,” he said quickly, plunging forward. “I don’t know what Amy’s been telling you, but we’re not engaged. In fact, I haven’t taken her out for over a year and when we did go out”—he half-lifted his hands—“it was only a few times. I don’t want her angry with me. I don’t want you and Marcy angry with me. But, the thing is”—Rocco shifted in his chair—“the thing is,” he said again on a long, low exhalation, “I want to marry someone else. And that’s so weird I can’t even explain it to myself.”
“You’ve told Amy this?”
“I’ve tried, but she doesn’t always listen. I have no idea where she got the idea we were engaged, but in case I missed something somewhere and she’s part of our deal, well”—he took a deep breath—“then, I guess”—another deep breath—“she’ll have to be part of our deal.”
“You’d marry her, you mean?”
Rocco gripped the chair arms, every muscle in his body tensed for flight. But he didn’t flee, he said instead, terse and low, “We can’t afford to lose your financing. Anthony would have a heart attack if he even knew I was talking to you about this. He’s nervous as hell about losing his house with his family and all. Sylvie’s expecting again—it’s all pretty dicey . . . although I was thinking if I stayed on the road selling for the next six months, maybe we could pay you back sooner, say—a third of what we owe you in six months and the rest in two more six-month installments.”
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